The Rev. Dr. Gregory C. Ellison, II joined the Candler School of Theology faculty in 2009. His teaching draws primarily from his work with the organization he founded called Fearless Dialogues, a non-profit organization that creates unique spaces for unlikely partners to have hard, heartfelt conversations on taboo subjects like racism, classism, and community violence. Ellison’s research focuses on caring with marginalized populations, pastoral care as social activism, and 20th and 21st century mysticism. He is the author of Cut Dead but Still Alive: Caring for African American Young Men, and has two books in progress with Westminster John Knox Press – Fearless Dialogues: The Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century and Anchored in the Current: The Eternal Wisdom of Howard Thurman in a Changing World.
Georgette Ledgister is a PhD Candidate in religion, and social and theological ethics at Emory University. A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, her research interests focus on the intersection of religion, violence and peacebuilding, and locating agency in conflict and post-conflict contexts amongst the most vulnerable and marginalized of populations. Her dissertation research explores marriage as agency in practice amongst young women in the Mai-Mai resistance movement of the southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, to interrogate the traditionally passive roles attributed to young African women in contexts of conflict. She received her Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology in 2010, and is a candidate for ordination as an elder in the Methodist Church of Congo. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her spouse, André, and their daughter, Zuri.
